The Large Binocular Telescope
Introduction
The Large Binocular Telescope is maintained by the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBTO) which itself is funded and maintained by the LBT consortium (LBTC). The LBTC has 5 partners, one of which is the German LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft (LBTB). The LBTB holds 25% of the observing time at the LBT and is composed of the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, the Max-Planck-Institute for extraterrestrial physics in Garching, the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, the Leibniz-Institute for astrophysics in Postdam and the Landessternwarte Heidelberg (LSW). At present, the LSW has a modest share of the observing time of about 5 nights per year. This includes guaranteed time as compensation for funding by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to built instruments for the LBT.
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The LBT is located on Mt. Graham at the Mount Graham National Observatory (MGIO, link) about 240km east of Tucson, Arizona at an altitude of 3200m. It is in operation 10 months per year and being closed most of July and August due to the monsoon season.
Instrumentation
The unique aspect of the LBT is twofold. First of all, it harbors
two 8.4m mirrors on a common mount, which allow interferometric
measurements with a spatial resolution of a 22m baseline.
Secondly, it has modern state-of-the-art instruments available.
Four pairs of basically identical wide-fields cameras, optical and near-infrared
imager and multi-object spectropgraphs, as well as very-high resolution
Echelle spectrographs can be used. Complemented is the LBT by various
interferometers. The near-infrared instruments can be used in
combination with lasers for ground-layer adaptive optics correction over
a large field of view or natural guide-star adaptive optics correction
for highest spatial resolution.
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Most of the instruments are delivered by the partners as inkind contribution to the project. The LBTB inkind contribution are the LUCI instruments, a pair of near-infrared images and multi-object spectrographs. The LSW is the PI institute of these instruments. See also the "press release by the University of Heidelberg"
Strategic importance of the LBT for the LSW
The LBT and its instrumentation is of strategic importance for the LSW. It allows to conduct observations with an 8m class telescope on the northern sky and is in support of the major scientific working areas at the LSW - the characterization of extrasolar planets, active galactic nuclei and galactic archeology. Some examples:
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